June 19, 2014

Florida completes third uneventful US execution in less than one day

As reported in this CNN piece, a "double murderer was executed in Florida Wednesday night, becoming the third man put to death in an American prison during a 24-hour period." Here are the basics:

John Ruthell Henry, 63, was declared dead at 7:43 p.m. ET at the Florida State Prison in Starke, according to CNN affiliate WFLA, which had a media witness inside the prison. Henry fatally stabbed his wife and her 5-year-old son from a previous marriage in December 1985.

In Georgia, Marcus A. Wellons, 59, was declared dead at 11:56 p.m. ET Tuesday. Wellons was convicted in 1993 of raping and killing India Roberts, 15, in Cobb County, just outside Atlanta. In Missouri, John Winfield was declared dead at 12:01 a.m. CT Wednesday, the state Department of Public Safety said....

Those three executions were the first in the United States since the botched execution of an Oklahoma man in April. The Oklahoma execution raised questions about how prisons use drugs in lethal injections.